Area's biggest employer stirs to life after 'Survivor'-like ordeal

Northrop Grumman Corp. has reopened its big military shipyard in Avondale with about 12 percent of its normal 6,000 workers, breathing an important burst of life into the New Orleans region's storm-crippled economy.

The opening of the region's biggest manufacturer on Monday will bring a growing number of workers back to metropolitan New Orleans who will be earning pay checks and spending at least some of their money with local businesses, said George Yount, the shipyard's vice president of operations.

"If we're not open again, in addition to the agony wrought by the storm, you would have 6,000 families without income. That would trickle down to other families" in the region, he said during a Tuesday morning interview from the shipyard's headquarters building, known as the Rock House.

Another challenge facing the yard is re-establishing transportation lines for delivering the factory's most important feedstock, steel. With some of the region's railroad lines out of commission, steel shipments will have to arrive by truck or barge, Yount said.

More than 700 shipyard workers were on the job Tuesday. That number should steadily increase over the coming weeks as more displaced workers are located and arrangements are made to temporarily house the workers in the area and transport them to the yard, Yount said. Housing provided by the shipyard will not be available to family members of workers, he said.

Within a year, the yard's work force should reach at least half of its pre-storm amount, Yount said. "If we can get 3,500 people back, I would be thrilled, " he said.

The yard is operating Monday through Thursday 10 hours a day. The schedule will let workers restart shipbuilding activity while giving them a three-day weekend to take care of personal recovery matters, Yount said.

Northrop is transporting workers by bus from Thibodaux, Raceland and Houma daily, he
said. More buses will begin daily runs from Baton Rouge and the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain in the coming days.

Shipyard managers are trying to locate crew barges - essentially floating dormitories - that could be moored along the yard's docks for housing workers during the work week.

The yard's relatively quick return to operation was due to the small amount of largely cosmetic damage sustained during Hurricane Katrina. The yard's sister shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., formerly known as Ingalls, wasn't as fortunate.

Katrina's storm surge swept six feet of water over the Mississippi yard, flooding the factory's manufacturing shops and putting them out of commission for weeks.

Because much of the operations at the two yards had been integrated in recent years, managers will be able to move some workers and work loads from the Pascagoula yard to the west Jefferson Parish plant for the time being, Yount said. Specifically, workers at the Avondale yard will start building the second in a series of national security cutters for the Coast Guard that were supposed to be constructed at Mississippi factory.

Yount and about 80 other workers rode out the storm at the Rock House, where many of them have remained.

They relied on police and firemen for news from the outside world. They distributed pistols after a small group of men tried to enter the yard and threatened them. They built a makeshift barricade around the Rock House with cars, concrete barriers and barbed wire.
They crafted an outdoor shower out of an emergency eye washing system. And they bartered part of their 100,000 gallon stockpile of diesel for supplies.

"It was kind of a cross between Survivor and Big Brother here. We think we would be strong contestants, " Yount said.